Luke: Legacy of the Forc e

Mean, moody and magnificent: Mark Hamill’s cornball hero reveals a darker side under the influence of Terese’s paintbrush... “This was created for Star Wars Miniatures: Legacy of the Force packaging in 2007. They wanted Luke in his black, battle-rebelcommando stealth suit: lightsaber in hand, no helmet, eye contact and an aggressive stance. Frazetta’s Tanar of Pellucidar bubbled up in my mind.

I shot photos of a model (in this case me) for basic anatomy, lighting and costuming. From there, a sketch was worked up and approved by the Lucas team. The final art was painted, starting with gouache washes in the background as an underlayer of colour and texture. Acrylic washes were laid in on the figure. After all the white of the paper was covered with general colours, values and texture, and the rest was built up and rendered out in oil. The background was revisited with more glazes of oil and an airbrush was used for the lightsaber glow.”

photo reference “Here I am, in all my ‘Force-d’ glory. I had the Hamill face reference, so all I needed was basic pose/lighting/costuming.” “I was more than thrilled at the opportunity to depict Luke with a more badass feel.” “The sketch was printed...